Water

During its 30 years of operation, Connecticut Yankee restricted access to the discharge canal by boat, but fishermen were allowed to gather along the banks of the man made inlet. The floating boom was removed in 2007 and the canal once again became popular with fishermen, this time arriving by water. But the boat access began to worry Connecticut Yankee managers…

Connecticut’s rivers and streams don’t get the respect they deserve. Organizers of this weekend’s RiverFest on the Eightmile River say it’s time to savor and celebrate the “Wild and Scenic” river in our midst. The Eightmile River Watershed, which starts in Colchester, stretches through Salem, East Haddam and Lyme, and abuts East Lyme, was designated[continue reading…]

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Rep. John Larson, state Rep. Mary Mushinsky, New England Regional EPA head Curt Spalding and DEEP Commissioner Rob Klee, Clean Water Action, Rivers Alliance, Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment, Sierra Club, CT Coalition for Environmental Justice, Interreligious Eco-Justice Network and other groups stressed the need for improved water protections and to showcase the importance of clean water for everyone.

The Long Island Sound Study released an update this month as a remedy. “What we’re trying to do,” Mark Tedesco EPA’s director of the LIS office said, “is see how climate change can affect really everything we do — to try to integrate into our thinking and planning, whether it’s controlling nutrient runoff that could change with more intense storms,” or protecting coastal wetlands, a critical buffer between ocean and homes during storms.

The Connecticut River Watershed Council (CRWC) will use their 18th Annual Source to Sea Cleanup on Sept. 26, 27 as a way to push for solutions to river waste. The Cleanup supports policies and legislation that help keep waste from ending up in local rivers and streams. The Council also supports a new vision of zero waste for the Connecticut River and its tributaries.

A new 20-year plan to protect Long Island Sound while addressing problems created by global warming and rising sea levels calls for protecting or relocating key coastal facilities like oil tanks and power stations, among other measures. The draft proposal was released Monday by the Long Island Sound Study, a coalition of local, state and[continue reading…]

U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-5th District, appealed to officials and environmental groups Monday for help in building support for a bill that would give federal wild and scenic designation to part of the Farmington River. Esty said a federal wild and scenic designation opens up resources, including funding, for conservation projects. For more on this[continue reading…]

A new report says nitrogen pollution discharged into Long Island Sound continues an overall decline. That’s good news for marine life because too much nitrogen can fuel the growth of algae, which dies, settles on the ocean floor, and decays, using up oxygen in the process.

The 12-acre Higganum Cove property, beside a scenic waterfall, has been included on a list of Connecticut Superfund sites awaiting cleanup since 1989 because of the presence of PCBs, lead, and arsenic “at levels of concern to human health and the environment.”

Officials from the Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) detailed that plan in a public meeting Thursday night at Truman School. The plan aims to reduce the amount of storm and waste water by 75 percent by filling sewer pipes to capacity.

There is an important meeting coming up Thursday, June 5 in New Haven regarding the West River Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Abattement Study.

The meeting is open to the general public and will address the Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority (GNHWPCA) hiring the engineering firm CH2M HILL to study the sewer system along the West River.

The goal of the study is to evaluate alternatives and develop recommendations to reduce the frequency, volume and duration of combined sewer overflows (CSOs) into the West River.